Background: People often expect physical education teachers to look fit and athletic, to do lots of physical activity, and to eat well. While ample research exists on physical education teachers' bodies, relatively few scholars have investigated how physical educators relate corporeal expectations to broader ideas about subject content, pedagogy,…

Purpose: Over the last couple of decades, health has become a central part of the subject content in physical education (PE) curricula in many countries. As a result, issues of health have been foregrounded much more clearly in the teaching of PE. The aim of this study was to explore how Swedish PE teachers make sense of health in relation to…

Physical literacy (PL) has gained considerable attention and traction in the field of health and physical education (HPE) for some time now and can thus be seen as part of the HPE discourse. However, just as advocacy for PL has grown exponentially over the last decade(s), so have the critical voices raised over the universal adoption of this…

Background: High parental self-efficacy (PSE) has been associated with healthy diets and higher levels of physical activity (PA) in children; however, data on PSE in relation to body weight and body composition are scarce. The objective of this study was to investigate associations of PSE with measures of diet, PA, body composition, and physical…

In this paper, we critically examine the potential of assessment components in physical education teacher education (PETE) to either reinforce or challenge PETE students' conceptions of what a physical education (PE) teacher needs to know to teach this school subject. To understand the mechanisms that may contribute to the difficulty of…

The aim of this paper is to identify and discuss similarities and differences between the curricula for physical education (PE) in secondary schools in Sweden, France and the canton of Geneva (Switzerland) in the light of PE teaching traditions (PETTs). Teaching traditions concern ideas about the goals of school disciplines and therefore about the…

Teachers in the school subject Health and Physical Education (HPE) need to be able both to teach health and to do so in a healthy (equitable) way. The health field has, however, met with difficulties in finding its form within the subject. Research indicates that HPE can be excluding, meaning that it may give more favours to some pupils (bodies)…

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the literature concerned with bodily perspectives on professional learning by reporting on a study of Swedish police officers' sport participation as a form of occupational learning. The study seeks to answer how ideals of work practice and sport participation intersect, how professional learning is…

An increased interest in health, diet, and physical activity exist among young people, in this study termed 'fitness hype'. Viewing the body and health as commodities can be understood as part of a healthism discourse. In this study, we explored how Swedish high school students perceive and negotiate the trend regarding exercise, diet and body…

This article analyses fitness professionals' perceptions and understanding of their occupational education and pedagogical pursuance, framed within the emergence of a global fitness industry. The empirical material consists of interviews with personal trainers and group fitness instructors, as well as observations in their working environment. In…

In a significant article from 1993, Crum describes the purpose of physical education (PE) as a "planned introduction into movement culture". In broad terms, this purpose is tantamount to the stated purpose of Swedish PE in national steering documents. Crum contends, however, that physical educators do not prioritise learning, which is…

Background: In this article, students' diverse ways of participating in physical education (PE) practice shown in clips on YouTube were investigated. YouTube is the largest user-generated video-sharing website on the Internet, where different video content is presented. The clips on YouTube, as used in this paper, can be seen as a user-generated…

Background: Physical activity and structural differences in the hippocampus have been linked to educational outcome. We investigated whether a curriculum-based physical activity intervention correlates positively with children's academic achievement, psychological well-being, health-related quality of life (HRQoL), fitness, and structural…

This study evaluates a multifactorial school-based intervention with the aim of decreasing cardiometabolic risk factors by means of a healthy lifestyle, primarily with daily physical activity and healthy food during school hours, at an upper secondary school for students with intellectual disabilities. The outcome is measured in terms of…

Objective: This study evaluated changes in self-efficacy in non-physically active adolescent girls (13-19 years old) who participated in a six-month, empowerment-based exercise intervention programme (EIP). Design: The study used a pre- and post-test randomized group design and included one pre- and one post-test (at six months) and non-physically…